Welcome! This month's article focuses on the Karner Blue butterflies, the endangered species of Blues that are native to North America. The first article in this co-featured series (January 2000), Nabokov and His Beloved Blues Butterflies, emphasized the Nabokov Blues of Latin America.
One might presume that all Blues butterflies, such as the Eastern Tailed Blue, are blue in color, given their common name. However, this is not necessarily true. Many Blues butterflies are white, gray, and even brown and as such don't capture the eyes of all butterfly enthusiasts. This could very well be because they lack the bright, resplendent colors that the striking Swallowtails, Spangled Fritillaries, and Monarchs are blessed with.
Fortunately, the Blues did have a very impassioned admirer, irrespective of their lack of exotic colors. For without one of their greatest ambassadors, Vladimir Nabokov, the studies of Latin American Blues which he pioneered may never have been completed. Nabokov developed a lifelong affection for all of the Blues butterflies in both North and South America.
A Bit of Scientific Data About Karner Blues
Karner Blues are members of a widespread group of butterflies known today as the tribe Polyommatini, a part of the lycaenidae family. Blues are found on every continent where there are butterflies, except Antarctica.
Dr. Johnson points out in his recently published co-authored book, Nabokov's Blues, (Johnson and Coates, Zoland Books, 1999) that Nabokov had a conviction -- based on his discovery of further studies of the Karner Blue's anatomy and life history -- that it was a distinct species, reproductively incompatible with its possible 'melissa' relatives in the western United States. This view, supported by some current scientific texts, makes the Karner Blue even more important, for its loss would mean the permanent loss of a distinct and irreplaceable biological entity.
A pair of Karner Blue butterflies copulating at The Nature Conservancy's Kitty Todd Preserve, Ohio. (Photograph Copyright © 1999 M. Magdich. Courtesy M. Magdich, Toledo Zoo)
The Karner Blue is one of Nabokov's North American Blues named by him during his work in the 1940's at Harvard University. It is the most famous of Nabokov's Blues both because Nabokov named it and because of the mystique that has come to surround its endangered status and the protracted efforts to protect it.
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